the old that is strong
by takingoffmyshoes
Summary: It could be chance that has brought the three of them together, each with their abilities and each balancing the others, but Illya has seen enough of life to know that it always, always finds a way.


_written for diadema as part of the TMFU winter gift exchange over on ao3._

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_. . ._

* * *

There's a tinkling crash from the kitchen that sounds like fine glass shattering, and Solo sighs.

"Still alive, Gaby?" he calls.

"Yes," Gaby calls back, after a beat, and he sighs again. Just _once_ he'd like to set a sigil without interruption, but his luck never seems to run in that direction.

"What _isn't_ still alive?" he asks, sitting back on his heels. If it's just the flatware, that's fine. But if it's one of Illya's bottles (or worse, _more_ of Illya's bottles) there's going to be Hell to pay – and that may very well be literal.

"A lightbulb."

A _light_— No, that actually makes sense.

"Stop messing with the current," he suggests flatly. "We already have far too many lights, and we haven't even started with the candles yet."

"Don't tell me how to celebrate, _Napoleon," _she responds acerbically. "You don't see me criticising your runes, do you?"

"No, but I can hear you," he mutters, then can't help adding, "and they're not runes!"

There's no answer, although the lights dim noticeably for an instant then surge back with an audible hum.

He shakes his head, sighs a third time, and picks up his salt chalk again.

He'd better add something for protection against electrical fires.

* * *

When Illya returns from his last-minute shopping – the kind that takes place in half-seen alleys and uncertainly shadowed corners, and relies on coin no modern nation has minted – the little house is aglow with strings of tiny incandescent lights over the doorway and flickering candles behind the frost-limned windows. The narrow path up to the door is more stepping stones than pavement, and each one is marked with a small white symbol that Illya recognises but has never learned to read.

That is Solo's dominion: the whispered words to earth and rock, mineral and metal, and the incomprehensible meaning they whisper back. Illya's business is with the living; herbs and trees, the musk of chlorophyll in the summer and the tang of pine in winter, the sighing of roots in soil and the laughing of leaves in the wind. Gaby is, of course, the one that completes the circle between them – through her run the flowing things, the air and water and the crackling of energy, by which the raw elements of the earth are broken down and drawn up into living things, and by which they are returned.

It could be chance that has brought the three of them together, each with their abilities and each balancing the others, but Illya has seen enough of life to know that it always, _always_ finds a way.

He stops at the door, solid oak painted a cheerful red and garnished with sprigs of fir and holly, and pauses to brush his fingers against it. It had once been a mighty tree, sheltering much life in its bark and branches and wide spreading boughs, and in even this small touch he can feel the wild, joyful beauty of its youth as well as the fading, greying years of its old age. It had fallen not to axe, but to time, and so there is no grief in it, no pain. Just _hiraeth_, a word he'd heard by luck and fallen in love with at once.

The wood returns his greeting and accepts his thanks, swinging easily inward when he turns the knob. Solo and Gaby often have to wrestle with it, as it expands and contracts with heat and humidity, but it is always smooth for him – smooth and silent.

As he crosses the threshold, the familiar chill of iron pricks at his skin for a fleeting moment, then vanishes. He steps carefully on the doormat, aware of the salt sigil concealed and protected beneath it. Solo would be very unhappy if he smudged it.

Inside the house is just as warm and welcoming as it had appeared from the outside; he imagines he can feel his damp coat steaming in the entryway. And the _smell_ – pine and cinnamon and apple and nutmeg, the familiar scent of heated copper and the piquant whiff of ozone, made all the more comforting by the awareness of each one's origin.

This is _home_, even if they only spend a handful of days in it every year.

He sets his packages down on the small table by the door and bends to unlace his boots. When he straightens again, Solo is standing before him, sleeves rolled up and arms crossed loosely in front of his chest.

"Well, you certainly took your time," he observes. "We were starting to wonder if you'd be back before dark." Illya rolls his eyes, but only because it's a habit.

"I had trouble finding some things," he explains. "But I'm here now. Is everything ready?"

"Just about," Solo says, clapping his hands and rubbing them briskly. "Gaby's prepping the fire, but you'd better do your bit with the log before we light anything."

"Of course," Illya says, even though Solo needn't have told him that: Illya would sooner burn _himself_ than any living wood that's not been properly thanked and venerated.

He shrugs out of his coat and hands it to Solo to hang up, then takes his packages into the kitchen to drop them off on the table before continuing through to the hearth room.

The hearth is wide and deep, lined in ancient stone, and set within it is an iron basket that despite its strength appears to be straining under the weight of the great yule log it holds. Gaby's kneeling off to one side, legs tucked up under her and a tongue of flame sheltering in the cup of her palms.

"Illya," she says happily when she sees him. "Just in time! Do you like the decorations?"

"They're lovely," he tells her, and means it. She smiles at the softness of his words, then her gaze shifts a bit and Illya glances over to see Solo entering behind him.

"I _told_ you it wasn't too many lights," Gaby says pointedly.

Solo gives Illya a put-upon look and shakes his head minutely in resignation.

Illya grins. "Still haven't learned not to argue?"

"He never will," Gaby predicts. "Stubbornness is a trait of his, as you may have noticed."

"Ah, but we will wear him down eventually." He ducks down to press a kiss to the top of her head, then goes to his knees beside her.

He takes a deep breath, and reaches out to lay his hand on the log. Oak, as well, but newer, younger, still humming with life. Its tree had been felled by lightning, so it's suitable for the observances to come, but it's always sad to get a glimpse of what was and what might have been. Hiraeth, again, he supposes.

_Thank you_, he tells it. _Thank you for the gift of life you gave to so many. Thank you for the shelter of your bark and branches, for the pure air of your lungs, for the strength and support of your roots. You lived well and long, but not as long as you might have, and for that I am sorry_. _Twice you have agreed to burn tonight, to light the longest night and kindle hope at the turning of the year. No longer will your wood provide shelter; no more will you gently crumble to soil. So I ask you again: knowing this, will you burn?_

The words are a combination of heart and tradition: he knows the lines, the necessary phrases and questions, but no two recitations have ever been identical.

He'd looked long for a suitable offering, and asked when he'd found it, and asked again before cutting it to size and bringing it into the house, and although only the first asking is truly necessary, the other two are important in their own ways.

_Yes_, the wood says. _Yes, I will burn to fight the darkness and give you light and warmth. I will burn, and my ashes will return to the earth and nourish it. I will burn_.

_Thank you_, Illya says again, and withdraws his hand.

"Go ahead," he says to Gaby. "It's time."

She bows her head over her cupped hands, and the flame seems to reach up to kiss her forehead. "Go," she tells it softly, and pours it onto the log. It runs like water from her hands, spreading across the line Illya had scored into the bark and settling into the raw wood.

The log sighs, the flame dims for a moment, and then the fire surges with a _whoomp_ and wraps around the wood.

For a few minutes, they just watch. Even ordinary flames are mesmerizing, but this confluence of life and fire and stone at the apex of the sun's journey is, in a way, the pinnacle of their work throughout the year, and it holds a special sway over their hearts.

The determination of the flames, the sacrifice of the wood, the protection of the stone: is this not who and what they are?

"There is light in the darkness," Solo intones in a voice that is older and deeper than his own, that shifts and cracks like the mantle of the earth beneath them, that fills the room with sense memories of ancient places and unplumbable depths.

"Where there is light, there is life," Gaby says, crackling like wildfire and howling like the wind.

"And where there is life, there is hope," Illya finishes. He has no idea how is own voice sounds to them, but he imagines the choruses of summer fields and the quiet majesty of a cathedral of trees.

"Excellent," Solo says brightly, sounding like himself again. "Dinner, anyone?"

* * *

Dinner isn't quite as steeped in meaning as the lighting of the yule log had been; the important duties have been done, and as long as the food is enjoyed in fellowship and good cheer, then the food itself doesn't really matter.

This year it's _kulebyaka_, layers of meat and rice and vegetables and herbs wrapped in a hearty, eggy yeast dough, with baked apples and pears on the side and fragrant, salty chips of roasted pine bark to fill in around the edges.

After they've eaten their fill (and then a little bit more), Illya starts mixing the wine, leaving Gaby and Solo to clean up. They stand side by side at the sink, Gaby washing the dishes and Solo drying as she hands them to him. It's quiet, companionable work, and Gaby finds herself leaning into Solo a bit more as they progress through the stack. He's strong and solid against her, and even though he's not as warm as she or Illya, his side proves a comfortable place to rest.

"Happy Solstice, Gaby," he says quietly, when there are no more dishes to wash and Gaby still hasn't moved from her spot.

"Happy Solstice, Napoleon," she returns, then gives in and slips her arms around his waist. He wraps an arm around her in turn and pulls her close.

"It'll be warmer by the fire," Solo says, but Gaby just hums. She's quite happy where she is. The only thing that would make this better is Illya at her other side, or behind her and Solo, holding them both.

"Illya's in there," Solo points out, reading her mind. His voice is a soothing rumble against her ear, pressed to his chest. "We can pile together on the rug and drink our wine, then when we're all warm and tipsy, we can go to bed."

She sighs at the thought of that – to be wrapped in warmth and softness, sleeping deeply and peacefully and not waking until the late-rising sun appears over the horizon.

"Come on, Gabs," Solo urges. "Let's go. Move your legs, don't make me drag you."

A little push overcomes her inertia, and together they make their way back to the hearth room, where Illya is stirring mulled wine in a copper pot suspended from a hook in front of the fire.

"Almost ready," he says without looking up. "Cowboy, you forgot the cups again."

"So I did," Solo agrees, and goes back to the kitchen to get them. They're nothing fancy, more along of the line of mugs than wine glasses, but they're special in their own way.

When Solo returns with them, Illya ladles the hot wine into each one, then adds cinnamon sticks, star anise, and slivers of candied orange, and passes them around.

"To the Solstice," Gaby says, and they all raise their cups in toast.

The last hour of the evening passes in a mesmerizing haze of flickering light, tides of warmth, and the rich, spicy sweetness of the wine. When their cups are empty, Illya gathers them up and takes them into the kitchen to wash in the morning; they'll do no more work tonight, beyond what it takes to get themselves to bed.

Later, as Gaby nestles between Solo and Illya beneath their many quilts and blankets, and the heaviness of sleep is stealing through her, she imagines she can sense the whole world, dancing its way among the stars. She can feel its motion, its tilt, its spin, and the moment it reaches the tip of its orbit around the sun, something seems to slip into place in her soul, and she falls asleep in perfect peace.

Tomorrow will look no different, but it will be a new era, a new year, and a new chance, to make of what they will.

* * *

_all that is gold does not glitter,_

_not all those who wander are lost._

_the old that is strong does not wither;_

_deep roots are not touched by the frost._

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_. . ._

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_thank you for reading! as always, please feel free to leave whatever feedback you'd like to!_


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